Simon Tolkien - The King of Diamonds

Vanessa’s legs were weak and her hands were shaking, so she held on to the curving mahogany banister for support as she went down, clutching the book in her other hand. She paused just above the cat and raised her forefinger to her lips in a mute appeal for silence, and Cara remained obediently still, her unblinking, luminous green eyes watching Vanessa intently as she went slowly past. Now Vanessa could hear raised voices to her right — it sounded like Claes and Osman were arguing in the dining room. She started across the hall to the front door, and suddenly there was the noise of shouting coming from up above.

For a moment the adrenaline coursing through her body rooted Vanessa to the spot, but then it released her and she was at the door, wrenching it open. The fog rushed up to meet her, and she almost fell on the steps, but somehow she made it to the bottom and into her car. She could hear running feet behind her as she pulled the door shut and gunned the engine, setting off down the drive with a screech of tyres.

Claes watched her go. He hesitated a moment in the courtyard, looking back through the mist at his sister and Osman, who were standing in the doorway.

‘She’s got something. From Katya’s room. A book,’ said Jana, speaking in Dutch. Her voice was breathless, and she was holding on to her side like she was in pain.

Claes nodded, making up his mind. He ran past them into the house to get his keys. In his room he unlocked the top drawer of his desk and took out his revolver. He spun the magazine to check the bullets, put the gun in his pocket with a grunt of satisfaction, and then ran back down the stairs.

‘Franz, listen to me. Don’t…’ Osman began, but Claes ignored him.

‘I won’t be long,’ he shouted as he got into the Bentley and set off down the drive in pursuit of Vanessa.

Osman swayed on the step, looking shell-shocked. He leaned against the jamb for a moment before Jana took hold of his arm and led him back into the house. The door closed behind them, and out in the fog-shrouded courtyard the eerie mid-afternoon silence returned until, a few minutes later, a tall figure emerged from the trees at the top of the drive. He hesitated a moment and then went up the front steps and rang the bell.

The fog had been less dense down by the road, but it grew thick again as Clayton pressed forward down the path leading toward the boathouse. Soon he could only see a few yards in any direction. To his left he could hear the water lapping against the shore of the lake, while up ahead the boathouse loomed up out of the mist, silhouetted by the surrounding trees. He didn’t know why, but the place drew him like a magnet. Perhaps it was because of all that had happened there — love and death, and now this pressing silence, interrupted only by the mournful cries of a gull hovering above the invisible lake. Clayton went up the wooden steps and glanced inside, but instinctively he already knew that the place would be deserted. There was something else that was calling his attention, but he didn’t realize what it was until he’d got back outside. Then he noticed it — the rowing boat was back, pushed in underneath the floor of the boathouse. Clayton got down on his hands and knees to pull it out and a moment later looked down at a brand-new bicycle lying on its side in the bottom of the boat.

Keeping away from the trees on either side, Clayton walked as quickly as the fog would let him down the centre of the path, returning the way he’d come. It was easier going towards the end as the fog thinned out nearer to the road. Wale hadn’t moved from the car while Clayton had been away, and Clayton got in beside him and turned on the engine, intending to go straight back to the Hall. He felt sure that Jacob wasn’t far away. But then, just as he was about to turn out into the road, he had to slam on his brakes as a small blue car rushed past them at high speed. Clayton recognized Vanessa in the driving seat — she looked crazy, like someone or something had sent her clean out of her mind. And then, less than a minute later, another car came hurtling by. It was Claes, driving Osman’s Bentley. Clayton knew Vanessa couldn’t match the speed of the Bentley, however hard she pushed her little car. Claes would’ve easily caught up with her by the time she got to Blackwater village. Clayton hesitated a moment and then reluctantly turned the steering wheel of the police car back in the opposite direction and set off in pursuit.

Claes rounded the corner and eased the Bentley back into fourth gear, increasing his speed as the road bent back around the hill toward Blackwater village. The trees that loomed like black ghostly shadows out of the fog now gave way to open fields covered in low-hanging mist, and Claes knew that Vanessa couldn’t be too far ahead.

His anger beat with a quickening pulse inside his brain as he peered forward, searching for the tail lights of her car in the haze. He gripped the steering wheel tight with both hands and imagined gripping her neck the same way, feeling for her windpipe with his thumbs so that he could slowly choke the life out of her as he watched the terror emptying from her eyes. That was the least she deserved for seducing Titus, stealing him away with her woman’s tricks — low-cut dresses and flickering eyelids. Titus deserved to suffer too. Claes wasn’t a fool: he’d already guessed that Titus intended to throw him over once he’d got the Trave woman ensconced as his wife at Blackwater Hall. But Titus could wait. First Claes was going to deal with the woman. He knew that he should have gone after her before now, once he’d realized that she had got Titus bewitched. But instead he’d sat on his hands like a fool and done nothing while she went off to court and told the world about what that bitch, Katya, had said. And now she had something from Katya’s room. What it was he didn’t know, but he’d have to make sure he got it back before the police arrived.

Perhaps he’d make her talk, tease her with the gun and let her babble a bit with stupid pleas for mercy before he killed her. A faraway look came into Claes’s eyes for a moment as he remembered old times in other countries where he’d had the law on his side. But here it was different, he remembered with a jolt. He couldn’t torture her or strangle her or bludgeon her to death. He couldn’t even shoot her. Not with no one to pin the murder on. He’d have to content himself with running her off the road, making it look like she’d got in an accident in the fog. The weather was on his side at least. It’d be easy once he’d caught up with her — child’s play.

Now he was rushing through Blackwater village and could see tail lights up ahead. It had to be her — he could make out the domed roof of her Citroen 2CV, and he sensed she was going as fast as her little car would go. But not fast enough: the Bentley had twice as much horsepower. He only had to apply the slightest pressure to the accelerator and he was practically on her bumper. He imagined her terror as she kept glancing in her rear-view mirror, hoping it wasn’t him, knowing it was. They were approaching the crossroads at the end of the village — the same place where David Swain had hijacked a car five months earlier. Beyond, the road turned sharply westward and the woods began again — just the place to stage a fatal accident far from watching eyes.

Claes had expected Vanessa to slow down at the junction, but he had done the job of terrifying her too well. She shot across the crossroads, and automatically he followed. Too late he realized his mistake. A heavily laden lorry coming up out of the fog from the right just missed Vanessa’s car, but Claes wasn’t so lucky. The collision was immediate and overwhelming as the lorry drove through and over the Bentley. Even if he had been wearing a seat belt, Claes would have stood almost no chance. Without one he died instantly with his last, highly uncharacteristic sensation of astonishment etched across what was left of his pale, twisted face.